“You’re too good”: The guitarist Eddie Van Halen felt the world ignored
Most of the best musicians in the world don’t have to take the time to remind everyone of their skills. They’re well aware that they could stomp out any of their competition, but the goal was always to serve the song rather than go the route of Yngwie Malmsteen and make every single song a vehicle for shredding. Although Eddie Van Halen had no problem flying off the handle when he wanted to, he was always an avid fan of tasteful guitar playing rather than playing anything too flashy.
But that might sound a bit strange, especially coming from the same person who invented the signature tapping move that everyone stole. Sure, Eddie wasn’t inventing new ways of approaching the fretboard not to get noticed, but there was also a lot of ground for him to cover that didn’t even need lead guitar playing at all. He may have his lead moments, but who could forget the rhythmic chops in ‘Atomic Punk’ or the jungle-like rhythm in ‘Mean Street’?
That kind of playing doesn’t come from someone who only has one trick up their sleeve, and while Eddie would be synonymous with tapping until the final years of his life, he was always trying out new ways of approaching the instrument. And if none of the rock crowd was giving him the kind of excitement that he wanted, he was going to have to look into the world of jazz to find what he wanted.
Despite having some phenomenal players as friends like Steve Lukather from Toto, Eddie was always on the lookout for what the next best thing in music was supposed to be. And while it would never make a dent in the album charts, the kind of music Allan Holdsworth was pulling off sounded like it may as well have been created by aliens.
Because when looking at his hand live, Holdsworth would have had to have either superhuman strength or abnormally large hands to pull off the handful of chords he played. Most guitarists know how much dexterity they need to play insane licks, but Holdsworth’s way with chords made his left hand look like a car crash on the fretboard, and yet he still found ways to make them sound absolutely beautiful.
Eddie may have received most of the glory while Holdsworth faded into obscurity, but the guitar god always thought that his friend should have been given the flowers that he deserved, saying, “Allan is such a fucking nice guy. He came over [to California] for his last chance to try to make some money playing. Man, I started crying! I couldn’t fucking believe it! So after I jammed with him at the Roxy, I’m saying, ‘My God, man, you’re too fucking good just be pissed away like this.’ He was selling records at the door.”
And even if the rest of the world didn’t notice it, any guitar player looking to up their game is doing themselves a massive disservice by not checking out what Holdsworth could do. Eddie may be the obvious choice for most people to flock to first, but Holdsworth often managed to make Eddie look like an amateur in some respects, whether it was his solo work or working alongside other legends like Bill Bruford with the band UK on songs like ‘In the Dead of Night’.
So let this be less of a discounting of Eddie’s playing and more of a celebration of what the jazz aficionado could do. Eddie has his fans and is certainly deserving of every accolade that gets through his way, but Holdsworth is the kind of guitarist who managed to be the best-kept secret in the history of rock and roll.
